Daily archives "June 20, 2016"

Synopsis: Two 15-year-old yoga enthusiasts (Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Melody Depp) in Manitoba who work at a convenience store after school join forces with a legendary man-hunter (Johnny Depp) to battle an ancient evil and fight for their lives.

Kevin Smith returns with another part of his True North Trilogy after the demented and funny ‘Tusk’.

The Colleens (Smith and Depp) reluctantly work behind the counter at the convenience store owned by Colleen C’s dad (Tony Hale). The girls are constantly on their phones and always invent any excuse to put up a “temporarily closed” sign. When not working or attending high school they visit a strip mall yoga studio run by Yogi Bayer (Justin Long), who teaches moves like “Pretentious Frog” and “Dissatisfied Customer”. One night in the shop the girls are attacked by Nazis sausages (“Brat-zis”). They team up to uncover where these little monsters have come from and try and rid the town of them.

The story like Tusk was thought of by one of the Director’s Smodcast podcasts. Unlike ‘Tusk’ which was a self contained premise, this time there is too much going on and everything but the kitchen sink has been thrown in.

In the past Kevin Smith has written some great funny observant films. Unfortunately Hosers is not very funny and most of the jokes are lazy stereotypes regarding Canadians using the phrases “eh” and “aboot”. Although some of the wisecracks in the film do work.

The pacing is also all over the place with the first hour coming across as a Romy and ‘Michelle’s High School Reunion’ meets ‘Scott Pilgrim Versus the World’ with Instagram 8bit graphics. It is only in the last 30 mins that anything really happens when the monsters are unleashed when the film becomes some sort of Troma inspired homage.

The girls are fun and have an incredible chemistry together. Johnny Depp’s private eye character Guy LaPointe is also different from his initial incarnation in ‘Tusk’ where he was played more like Columbo, while here he has changed the characterisation to being more like Inspector Closeau.

There are some elements of fun hidden in this mess. But after ‘Tusk’, this is a really disappointing piece of work from a unique auteur like Kevin Smith. Hopefully with the final part ‘Moose Jaws’ he can rein in the over imaginative ideas.